In general, the transmitting satellite ground terminal station of a communication system includes a block upconverter (BUC) for mixing signals to generate a radio frequency (RF) signal. The BUC is typically a high frequency component which generally requires more detailed and expensive manufacturing processes. In fact, the BUC is often times the most costly part of the ground terminal station.
Ground terminal stations operating in excess of 20 GHz often use a “chip and wire” methodology (module packaging with unpackaged semiconductors and unpackaged wirebonds) to intraconnect the high frequency BUC to the remaining low frequency parts. This methodology increases the complexity of assembly and increases the overall cost.
Another methodology for manufacturing ground terminal stations relates to a “mixed” technology of chip and wire methods with standard surface mount technology. For example, chip and wire techniques are used to interconnect the high frequency BUC components and surface mount techniques are used to interconnect the remaining low frequency parts. This methodology presents manufacturing problems in that two separate assembly processes are required.
Stand-alone BUC systems have been developed to overcome some of these prior art problems. However, these systems, do not offer high power amplifier output, and thus usually require signal amplification before transmission. In addition, these stand-alone BUC systems are not configured as surface-mountable components. Moreover, these systems are not configured to operate in the millimeter-wave and higher bands.